that they showed him an involuntary increase of respect, and that I could not help drawing myself up and sitting rather more upright than ordinary when he happened to look at me, nothing indicated any suspicion of the circumstance. I question if the baron would forgive me; for baron. The recognition was mutual. I shall he was of Alsace, and, though he called him- never forget the start he gave when in the self French, had German blood and quarter- middle of the first cotillon, he espied the ings, and pride enough for a prince of the em- little girl whom he had been used to see at pire. He was a fine-looking man of fifty, tall, the corner of the supper-table in Brunswickupright, and active, and still giving tokens of square, every Saturday evening. He coloured having been in his youth one of the handsomest with shame and anger, his hand trembled, and figures and best dancers at Versailles. He his voice faltered; but as he would not know was the least gay of the party, perhaps the me, I had the discretion not to appear to know least happy; for his pride kept him in a state him, and said nothing of the affair till I again of prickly defiance against all mankind. He visited my kind cousin. I never saw any one had the miserable jealousy of poverty, of one more affected than she was on hearing my "fallen from his high estate," suspected story. That this cold, proud, haughty man, insults where they were never dreamed of, and to whom any thing that savoured of humiliasifted civility, to see whether an affront, a tion seemed terrible, should so far abase his lurking snake, might be concealed beneath the nobility for Angelique and independence, was roses. The smallest and most authorized pre-wonderful! She could not refrain from tellsent, even fruit and game, were peremptorily ing her husband, but the secret was carefully rejected; and, if he accepted the Saturday- guarded from every one besides; and, except evening's invitation, it was evidently because he could not find in his heart to refuse a plea sure to his daughter. Angelique was, indeed, a charming creature, fair, blooming, modest and gentle, far more English than French in person, manner, and dress, doting on her father, soothing his little infirmities of temper, and In the mean time the fair Angelique, who ministering in every way to his comfort and was treated with the customary disregard happiness. Never did a father and a daughter shown to unmarried beauties by her countrylove each other better; and that is saying men, (whose devoirs the old duchess, the much. He repaid her care and affection with crooked ambassadress, and the squinting the most unbounded fondness, and a liberality countess, entirely engrossed,) was gradually that had no limit but his power. Mademoi- making an English conquest of no small imselle de G. was the best dressed, best lodged, portance. The eldest son of a rich merchant, and best-attended of any lady of the circle. who had been connected with our host in The only wonder was how the baron could several successful speculations, and was exafford it. Every one else had some visible ceedingly intimate with the family, begged to resource, of which they were so little ashamed be admitted to the Saturday evening coterie. that it was as freely communicated as any His request was readily granted; he came at news of the day. We all knew that the am- first from curiosity, but that feeling was soon bassadress and her brother the marquis lived exchanged for a deeper and more tender pastogether on a small pension allotted to the lady sion; and at last he ventured to disclose his by a foreign court, in reward of certain imputed love, first to the lady of his heart, and then services rendered to the Bourbons by her hus- to their mutual friend. Neither frowned on band; that the count taught French, Latin, the intelligence, although both apprehended and Italian; that the abbé contrived in some some difficulties. How would the baron look way or other to make his projects keep him; and that the pretty wife of the chevalier, more learned in bonnets than in impromptus, kept a very tasty and well-accustomed milliner's shop somewhere in the region of Cranbourne-alley: but the baron's means of support continued as much a puzzle as the ambassador's destination. At last, chance let me into the secret. Our English dancing-master waxed old and rich, and retired from the profession; and our worthy governess vaunted loudly of the French gentleman whom she had engaged as his successor, and of the reform that would be worked in the heads and heels of her pupils, grown heavy and lumpish under the late instructor. The new master arrived; and, whilst a boy who accompanied him was tuning his kit, and he himself paying his respects to the governess, I had no difficulty in discovering under a common French name, my acquaintance the on a man who could hardly trace his ancestors farther back than his grandfather? And how again would these rich citizens, equally proud in a different way, relish an alliance with a man who, however highly descended, was neither more or less than a dancing-master? But pride melts before love, like frost in the sunshine. All parties were good and kind, all obstacles were overcome, and all faults forgotten. The rich merchant forgave the baron's poverty, and the baron (which was more difficult) forgave his wealth. The calling which had only been followed for Angelique's sake, was for her sake abandoned; the fond father consented to reside with her; and surrounded by her lovely family, freed from poverty and its distressing consciousness, and from all the evils of false shame, he has long been one of the happiest, as he was always one of the best, of French emigrants. THE INQUISITIVE GENTLEMAN. ONE of the most remarkable instances that I know of that generally false theory "the ruling passion," is my worthy friend Samuel Lynx, Esq., of Lynx Hall in this countycommonly called the Inquisitive Gentleman. Never was cognomen better bestowed. Curiosity is, indeed, the master-principle of his mind, the life-blood of his existence, the mainspring of every movement. Mr. Lynx is an old bachelor of large fortune and ancient family; the Lynxes of Lynx Hall, have amused themselves with overlooking their neighbours' doings for many generations. He is tall, but loses something of his height by a constant habit of stooping; he carries his head projecting before his body, -like one who has just proposed a question and is bending forward to receive an answer. A lady being asked, in his presence, what his features indicated, replied with equal truth and politeness-a most inquiring mind. The cock-up of the nose, which seems from the expansion and movement of the nostrils to be snuffing up intelligence, as a hound does the air of a dewy morning, when the scent lies well; the draw-down of the half-open mouth gaping for news; the erected chin; the wrinkled forehead; the little eager sparkling eyes, half shut, yet full of curious meanings; the strong red eye-brows, protruded like a cat's whiskers or a snail's horns, feelers, which actually seem sentient; every line and lineament of that remarkable physiognomy betrays a craving for information. He is exceedingly short-sighted; and that defect also, although, on the first blush of the business, it might seem a disadvantage, conduces materially to the great purpose of his existence-the knowledge of other people's affairs. Sheltered by that infirmity, our "curious impertinent can stare at things and persons through his glasses in a manner which even he would scarcely venture with bare eyes. He can peep and pry and feel and handle, with an effrontery never equalled by an unspectacled man. He can ask the name and parentage of every body in company, toss over every book, examine every note and card, pull the flowers from the vases, take the pictures from the walls, the embroidery from your work-box, and the shawl off your back; and all with the most provoking composure, and just as if he was doing the right thing. The propensity seems to have been born with him. He pants after secrets, just as magpies thieve, and monkeys break china, by instinct. His nurse reports of him that he came peeping into the world; that his very cries were interrogative, and his experiments in physics so many and so dangerous, that before he was four years old, she was fain to tie his hands behind him, and to lock him into a dark closet to keep him out of harm's way, chiefly moved thereto by his ripping open his own bed, to see what it was made of, and throwing her best gown into the fire, to try if silk would burn. Then he was sent to school, a preparatory school, and very soon sent home again for incorrigible mischief. Then a private tutor undertook to instruct him on the interrogative system, which in his case was obliged to be reversed, he asking the questions, and the tutor delivering the responsesa new cast of the didactic drama. Then he went to college; then sallied forth to ask his way over Europe; then came back to fix on his paternal estate of Lynx Hall, where, except occasional short absences, he hath sojourned ever since, signalizing himself at every stage of existence, from childhood to youth, from youth to manhood, from manhood to age, by the most lively and persevering curiosity, and by no other quality under heaven. If he had not been so entirely devoid of ambition, I think he might have attained to eminence in some smaller science, and have gained and received a name from a new moss, or an undiscovered butterfly. His keenness and sagacity would also have told well in antiquarian researches, particularly in any of the standing riddles of history, the Gowrie conspiracy, for instance, or the guilt of queen Mary, respecting which men may inquire and puzzle themselves from the first of January to the last of December without coming at all nearer to the solution. But he has no great pleasure in literature of any sort. Even the real parentage of the Waverley novels, although nothing in the shape of a question comes amiss to him, did not interest him quite so much as might be expected; perhaps because it was so generally interesting. He prefers the "Bye-ways to the High-ways" of literature. The secrets of which every one talks, are hardly, in his mind, "Secrets worth knowing." Besides, mere quiet guessing is not active enough for his stirring and searching faculty. He delights in the difficult, the inaccessible, the hidden, the obscure. A forbidden place is his paradise; a board announcing "steeltraps and spring guns" will draw him over a wall twelve feet high; he would undoubtedly have entered Blue-beard's closet, although certain to share the fate of his wives; and has had serious thoughts of visiting Constantinople, just to indulge his taste by stealing a glimpse of the secluded beauties of the seraglio-an adventure which would probably have had no very fortunate termination. Indeed our modern peeping Tom has encountered several mishaps at home in the course of his long search after knowledge; and has generally had the very great aggravation of being altogether unpitied. Once, as he was taking a morning ride, in trying to look over a wall cottager-from him who wants a blue riband, that might have vied with the inside leaves to him who wants bread and cheese! My list of a moss-rose. Then, in hunting after cheapwas astounding. It was written in doubleness, I got into obscure shops, where, not columns, in an invisible hand; the long in- finding what I asked for, I was fain to take tractable words were brought into the ranks something that they had, purely to make a by the Procrustes mode-abbreviation; and, proper compensation for the trouble of lugging as we approached the bottom, two or three out drawers, and answering questions.-Lastwere crammed into one lot, clumped, as the ly, I was fairly coaxed into some articles by bean-setters say, and designated by a sort of the irresistibility of the sellers,-by the deshort-hand, a hieroglyphic of my own inven- mure and truth-telling look of a pretty Quaker. tion. In good open printing my list would who could almost have persuaded the head off have cut a respectable figure as a catalogue, one's shoulders, and who did persuade me too; for, as I had a given sum to carry to that ell-wide muslin would go as far as yard market, I amused myself with calculating the and a half: and by the fluent impudence of a proper and probable cost of every article; in lying shopman, who, under cover of a wellwhich process I most egregiously cheated the darkened window, affirmed, on his honour, that shopkeeper and myself, by copying, with the his brown satin was a perfect match to my credulity of hope, from the puffs in the news green pattern, and forced the said satin down papers, and expecting to buy fine solid wear- my throat accordingly. With these helps, my able goods at advertising prices. In this way money melted all too fast: at half past five I stretched my money a great deal farther than my purse was entirely empty; and, as shopit would go, and swelled my catalogue; so ping with an empty purse has by no means that, at last, in spite of compression and short- the relish and savour of shopping with a full hand, I had no room for another word, and one, I was quite willing and ready to go home was obliged to crowd several small but import- to dinner, pleased as a child with my pur-" ant articles, such as cotton, laces, pins, needles, chases, and wholly unsuspecting the sins of shoe-strings, &c. into that very irregular and omission, the errands unperformed, which were disorderly storehouse-that place where most the natural result of my unconsulted memothings deposited are lost-my memory, by randa and my treacherous memory. courtesy so called. 募 Home I returned, a happy and proud wo-; The written list was safely consigned, with man, wise in my own conceit, a thrifty fashiona well-filled purse, to my usual repository, a monger, laden, like a pedlar, with huge packblack velvet bag; and, the next morning, I ages in stout brown holland, tied up with and my bag, with its nicely-balanced contents whipcord, and genteel little parcels, papered of wants and money, were safely conveyed in and packthreaded in shopmanlike style. At a little open carriage to the good town of B. last we were safely stowed in the pony-chaise, There I dismounted, and began to bargain which had much ado to hold us, my little most vigorously, visiting the cheapest shops, black bag lying, as usual, in my lap; when, cheapening the cheapest articles, yet wisely as we ascended the steep hill out of B., a sudbuying the strongest and the best; a little den puff of wind took at once my cottage-bonastonished at first, to find everything so much net and my large cloak, blew the bonnet off dearer than I had set it down, yet soon recon- my head, so that it hung behind me, suspend-] ciled to this misfortune by the magical influ- ed by the riband, and fairly snapped the string Lence which shopping possesses over a wo of the cloak, which flew away, much in the man's fancy-all the sooner reconciled, as the style of John Gilpin's, renowned in story.—, monitory list lay unlooked at, and unthought My companion pitying my plight, exerted himof, in its grave receptacle, the black velvet self manfully to regain the fly-away garments, bag. On I went, with an air of cheerful busi- shoved the head into the bonnet, or the bonnet ¦ ness, of happy importance, till my money be over the head (I do not know which phrase gan to wax small. Certain small aberrations best describes the manœuvre,) with one hand, had occurred, too, in my economy. One ar- and recovered the refractory cloak with the ticle that had happened, by rare accident, to other. This last exploit was certainly the be below my calculation, and, indeed, below most difficult. It is wonderful what a tug he, any calculation, calico at ninepence, fine, thick, 'was forced to give, before that obstinate eleak strong, wide calico at ninepence, (did ever could be brought round: it was swelled with ' m.n hear of any thing so cheap!) absolutely the wind like a bladder, animated, so to say. enchanted me, and I took the whole piece: ; then, after buying for M. a gown, according to order, I saw one that I liked better, and bought that, too. Then I fell in love, was actually captivated by a sky-blue sash and handke relief, not the poor, thin, greeny co lour which usually passes under that disho noured name, but the rich, full tint of the noon-day sky; and a cap-riband, really pink, like a living thing, and threatened to carry pony and chaise, and riders and packages, backwards down the hill, as if it had been a sail, and we a ship. At last the contumacious garment was mastered. We righted; and, by dint of sitting sideways, and turning my | back on my kind comrade, I got home without any farther damage than the loss of my bag. which, though not missed before the chaist had been unloaded, had undoubtedly gone by the board in the gale; and I lamented my old and trusty companion, without in the least foreseeing the use it would probably be of to my reputation. - But who were naturally disposed to steal for stealing's sake; so I went to bed in the comfortable assurance that it was gone for ever. there is nothing certain in this world-not even a thief's dishonesty. Two old women, Immediately after dinner (for in all cases, who had pounced at once on my valuable proeven when one has bargains to show, dinner perty, quarrelled about the plunder, and one must be discussed) I produced my purchases. of them, in a fit of resentment at being cheatThey were much admired; and the quantity, ed in her share, went to the mayor of B. and · when spread out in our little room, being alto- informed against her companion. The mayor, gether dazzling, and the quality satisfactory, an intelligent and active magistrate, immethe cheapness was never doubted. Every-diately took the disputed bag, and all its conbody thought the bargains were exactly such tents, into his own possession; and as he is as I meant to get-for nobody calculated; and also a man of great politeness, he restored it the bills being really lost in the lost bag, and as soon as possible to the right owner. The the particular prices just as much lost in my very first thing that saluted my eyes, when I memory (the ninepenny calico was the only awoke in the morning, was a note from Mr. article whose cost occurred to me,) I passed, Mayor, with a sealed packet. The fatal truth without telling anything like a fib, merely by was visible; I had recovered my reticule, and a discreet silence, for the best and thriftiest lost my reputation.There it lay, that identibargainer that ever went shopping. After cal black bag, with its name-tickets, its camsome time spent very pleasantly, in admira- bric handkerchief, its empty purse, its uncontion on one side, and display on the other, we sulted list, its thirteen bills, and its two letters; were interrupted by the demand for some of one from a good sort of lady-farmer, inquiring the little articles which I had forgotten.. the character of a cook, with half a sonnet "The sewing-silk, please ma'am, for my mis- written on the blank pages; the other from a tress's gown." "Sewing-silk! I don't know literary friend, containing a critique on the -look about." Ah, she might look long plot of a play, advising me not to kill the king enough!-no sewing-silk was there.-"Very too soon, with other good counsel, such as strange!" Presently came other inquiries might, if our mayor had not been a man of "Where's the tape, Mary?" "The tape!" sagacity, have sent a poor authoress, in a "Yes, my dear; and the needles, pins, cot- Mademoiselle-Scuderi-mistake, to the Tower. ton, stay-laces, boot-laces ;"-"the bobbin, That catastrophe would hardly have been the ferret, shirt-buttons, shoe-strings ?" quoth worse than the real one. All my omissions she of the sewing-silk, taking up the cry; and have been found out. My price-list has been forthwith began a search as bustling, as active, compared with the bills. I have forfeited my and as vain, as that of our old spaniel, Brush, credit for bargaining. I am become a by-word after a hare that has stolen away from her for forgetting. Nobody trusts me to purchase form. At last she suddenly desisted from her a paper of pins, or to remember the cost of a rummage" Without doubt, ma'am, they are penny riband. I am a lost woman. My bag in the reticule, and all lost," said she, in a is come back, but my fame is gone. very pathetic tone. Really," cried I, a little conscience-stricken, “I don't recollect ;— perhaps I might forget." "Depend on it, my love, that Harriet's right," interrupted one whose injunctions are always kind; "those are just the little articles that people put in reticules, and you never could forget so many things; besides, you wrote them down." "I don't know-I am not sure."-But I was not listened to;-Harriet's conjecture had been metamorphosed into a certainty; all my sins of omission were stowed in the reticule; and, before bed-time, the little black bag held forgotten things enough to fill a sack. 66 Never was a reticule so lamented by all but its owner; a boy was immediately despatched to look for it, and on his return empty-handed, there was even a talk of having it cried. My care, on the other hand, was all directed to prevent its being found. I had the good luck to lose it in a suburb of B. renowned for filching, and I remembered that the street was, at that moment, full of people: the bag did actually contain more than enough to tempt those WALKS IN THE COUNTRY. THE DELL. MAY 2d. A delicious evening; bright sunshine; light summer air; a sky almost cloudless; and a fresh yet delicate verdure on the hedges and in the fields: - an evening that seems made for a visit to my newly-discovered haunt, the mossy dell, one of the most beautiful spots in the neighbourhood, which, after passing times out of number the field which it terminates, we found out about two: months ago, from the accident of May's killing a rabbit there. May has had a fancy for the place ever since; and so have I. Thither, accordingly, we bend our way; through the village-up the hill ;-along the common; past the avenue; - across the bridge; and by the mill. How deserted the road is to-night! We have not seen a single Some socially lying side by sim; E acquaintance, except poor blind Robert, laden with his sack of grass plucked from the hedges, and the little boy that leads him. A singular division of labour! Little Jem guides Robert to the spot where the long grass grows, and tells him where it is most plentiful; and then the old man cuts it close to the roots, and be tween them they fill the sack and sell the contents in the village. Half the cows in the street-for our baker, our wheelwright, and, our shoemaker, has each his Alderney-owe the best part of their maintenance to blind Robert's industry. Here we are at the entrance of the corn-field which leads to the dell, and which commands so fine a view of the Loddon, the mill, the great farm, with its picturesque outbuildings, and the range of woody hills beyond. It is impossible not to pause a moment at that gate, the landscape, always beautiful, is so suited to the season and the hour,-so bright, and gay, and spring-like. But May, who has the chance of another rabbit in her pretty head, has galloped forward to the dingle, and poor May, who follows me so faithfully in all my wanderings, has a right to a little indulgence, in hers. So to the dingle we go. At the end of the field, which when seen from the road seems terminated by a thick dark coppice, we come suddenly to the edge of a ravine, on one side fringed with a low growth of alder, birch, and willow, on the other mossy, turfy, and bare, or only broken by bright tufts of blossomed broom. One or two old pollards almost conceal the winding road that leads down the descent, by the side of which a spring as bright as crystal runs gurgling along, The dell itself is an irregular piece of broken ground, in some parts very deep, intersected ¦ by two or three high banks of equal irregular ity, now abrupt and bare and rocklike, now crowned with tufts of the feathery willow or magnificent old thorns. Everywhere the earth is covered by short fine turf, mixed with mosses, soft, beautiful, and various, and embossed with the speckled leaves and lilac flowers of the arum, the paler blossoms of the common orchis, the enainelled blue of the wild hyacinth, so splendid in this evening light, and large tufts of oxlips and cowslips rising like nosegays from the short turf. The ground on the other side of the dell is much lower than the field through which we eime, so that it is mainly to the labyrinthine intricacy of these high banks that it owes its singular character of wildness and variety, Now we seem hemmed in by those green cliff's, shut out from all the world, with nothing visible but those verdant mounds and the deep blue sky; now by some sudden turn we get a peep at an adjoining meadow where the sheep are lying, dappling its sloping surface like the smail clouds on the summer heaven. Poor harmless quiet creatures, how still they are! grouped in threes and fours; sime quite spart. Ah! there are lambs amongst them-etty, pretty lambs!-nestled in by their n thers. Soft, quiet, sleepy things! Not all so quiet! though! There is a party of these young lambs as wide awake as heart can desire; half a dozen of them playing together, frisking, dancing, leaping, butting, and crying in the young voice, which is so pretty a diminutive of the full-grown bleat. How beatiful they | are with their innocent spotted faces, their mottled feet, their long curly tails, and their light flexible forms, frolicking like so many kittens, but with a gentleness, an assurance of sweetness and innocence which no kitten, n> thing that ever is to be a cat, can have. How complete and perfect is their enjoyment of existence! Ah! little rogues! your play has been too noisy; you have awakened "your mammas; and two or three of the old ewes are getting up; and one of them marching gravely to the troop of lambs has selected her own, given her a gentle butt, and trotted off; the poor rebuked lamb following meekly, but' every now and then stopping and casting a, longing look at its playmates; who, after a !moment's awed pause, had resumed their gambols: whilst the stately dam every now and then looked back in her turn, to see that her little one was following. At last she lay down and the lamb by her side. I never saw so pretty a pastoral scene in my life." Another turning of the dell gives a glimpse of the dark coppice by which it is backed, and, from which we are separated by some marshy, rushy ground, where the springs have formed. into a pool, and where the moor-hen loves to | *I have since seen one which affected me much more. Walking in the Church-lane with one of the young ladies of the vicarage, we met a large flock of sheep with the usual retinue of shepherds and doga Langering after them and almost out of sight, we enwalking, and every now and then sto, ng to lok countered a straggling ewe, now trotting along, n w back and bleating. A little behind her came a l-me lamb, bleating occasionally, as if in answer to its dare. and doing its very best to keep up with her. It was a lameness of both the fore feet; the knees were bene My and it seemed to walk on the very edge of the hoof- |